psql

Name

psql --
PostgreSQL interactive terminal

Synopsis

psql [option...] [dbname [username]]

Description

psql is a terminal-based
front-end to PostgreSQL. It
enables you to type in queries interactively, issue them to
PostgreSQL, and see the query
results. Alternatively, input can be from a file. In addition, it
provides a number of meta-commands and various shell-like
features to facilitate writing scripts and automating a wide
variety of tasks.

Options

-a--echo-all

Print all nonempty input lines to standard output as
they are read. (This does not apply to lines read
interactively.) This is equivalent to setting the variable
ECHO to all.

Specifies that psql is
to execute one command string, command, and then exit. This is
useful in shell scripts. Start-up files (psqlrc and ~/.psqlrc) are ignored with this
option.

command must be either a
command string that is completely parsable by the server
(i.e., it contains no psql-specific features), or a single
backslash command. Thus you cannot mix SQL and psql meta-commands with this option.
To achieve that, you could pipe the string into
psql, for example:
echo '\x \\ SELECT * FROM foo;' |
psql. (\\ is the separator
meta-command.)

If the command string contains multiple SQL commands,
they are processed in a single transaction, unless there
are explicit BEGIN/COMMIT commands included in the string to
divide it into multiple transactions. This is different
from the behavior when the same string is fed to
psql's standard input.
Also, only the result of the last SQL command is
returned.

Because of these legacy behaviors, putting more than one
command in the -c string often has
unexpected results. It's better to feed multiple commands
to psql's standard input,
either using echo as
illustrated above, or via a shell here-document, for
example:

psql <<EOF
\x
SELECT * FROM foo;
EOF

-d dbname--dbname=dbname

Specifies the name of the database to connect to. This
is equivalent to specifying dbname as the first non-option
argument on the command line.

If this parameter contains an =
sign or starts with a valid URI prefix (postgresql:// or postgres://), it is treated as a conninfo string. See Section 31.1.1
for more information.

-e--echo-queries

Copy all SQL commands sent to the server to standard
output as well. This is equivalent to setting the variable
ECHO to queries.

-E--echo-hidden

Echo the actual queries generated by \d and other backslash commands. You can use
this to study psql's
internal operations. This is equivalent to setting the
variable ECHO_HIDDEN to on.

-f filename--file=filename

Use the file filename as
the source of commands instead of reading commands
interactively. After the file is processed, psql terminates. This is in many ways
equivalent to the meta-command \i.

If filename is
- (hyphen), then standard input is
read.

Using this option is subtly different from writing
psql < filename. In general, both will
do what you expect, but using -f
enables some nice features such as error messages with line
numbers. There is also a slight chance that using this
option will reduce the start-up overhead. On the other
hand, the variant using the shell's input redirection is
(in theory) guaranteed to yield exactly the same output you
would have received had you entered everything by hand.

-F separator--field-separator=separator

Use separator as the
field separator for unaligned output. This is equivalent to
\pset fieldsep or \f.

-h hostname--host=hostname

Specifies the host name of the machine on which the
server is running. If the value begins with a slash, it is
used as the directory for the Unix-domain socket.

-H--html

Turn on HTML tabular
output. This is equivalent to \pset
format html or the \H
command.

-l--list

List all available databases, then exit. Other
non-connection options are ignored. This is similar to the
meta-command \list.

-L filename--log-file=filename

Write all query output into file filename, in addition to the normal
output destination.

-n--no-readline

Do not use Readline for
line editing and do not use the command history. This can
be useful to turn off tab expansion when cutting and
pasting.

-o filename--output=filename

Put all query output into file filename. This is equivalent to the
command \o.

-p port--port=port

Specifies the TCP port or the local Unix-domain socket
file extension on which the server is listening for
connections. Defaults to the value of the PGPORT environment variable or, if not set, to
the port specified at compile time, usually 5432.

-P assignment--pset=assignment

Specifies printing options, in the style of \pset. Note that here you have to separate
name and value with an equal sign instead of a space. For
example, to set the output format to LaTeX, you could write -P format=latex.

-q--quiet

Specifies that psql
should do its work quietly. By default, it prints welcome
messages and various informational output. If this option
is used, none of this happens. This is useful with the
-c option. This is equivalent to
setting the variable QUIET to
on.

-R separator--record-separator=separator

Use separator as the
record separator for unaligned output. This is equivalent
to the \pset recordsep
command.

-s--single-step

Run in single-step mode. That means the user is prompted
before each command is sent to the server, with the option
to cancel execution as well. Use this to debug scripts.

-S--single-line

Runs in single-line mode where a newline terminates an
SQL command, as a semicolon does.

Note: This mode is provided for those who
insist on it, but you are not necessarily encouraged to
use it. In particular, if you mix SQL and meta-commands on a line the
order of execution might not always be clear to the
inexperienced user.

-t--tuples-only

Turn off printing of column names and result row count
footers, etc. This is equivalent to the \t command.

-T table_options--table-attr=table_options

Specifies options to be placed within the
HTMLtable tag. See \pset for details.

-U username--username=username

Connect to the database as the user username instead of the default. (You
must have permission to do so, of course.)

-v assignment--set=assignment--variable=assignment

Perform a variable assignment, like the \set meta-command. Note that you must
separate name and value, if any, by an equal sign on the
command line. To unset a variable, leave off the equal
sign. To set a variable with an empty value, use the equal
sign but leave off the value. These assignments are done
during a very early stage of start-up, so variables
reserved for internal purposes might get overwritten
later.

-V--version

Print the psql version
and exit.

-w--no-password

Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires
password authentication and a password is not available by
other means such as a .pgpass
file, the connection attempt will fail. This option can be
useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present
to enter a password.

Note that this option will remain set for the entire
session, and so it affects uses of the meta-command
\connect as well as the initial
connection attempt.

-W--password

Force psql to prompt
for a password before connecting to a database.

This option is never essential, since psql will automatically prompt for a
password if the server demands password authentication.
However, psql will waste a
connection attempt finding out that the server wants a
password. In some cases it is worth typing -W to avoid the extra connection attempt.

Note that this option will remain set for the entire
session, and so it affects uses of the meta-command
\connect as well as the initial
connection attempt.

-x--expanded

Turn on the expanded table formatting mode. This is
equivalent to the \x command.

-X,--no-psqlrc

Do not read the start-up file (neither the system-wide
psqlrc file nor the user's
~/.psqlrc file).

-z--field-separator-zero

Set the field separator for unaligned output to a zero
byte.

-0--record-separator-zero

Set the record separator for unaligned output to a zero
byte. This is useful for interfacing, for example, with
xargs -0.

-1--single-transaction

When psql executes a
script, adding this option wraps BEGIN/COMMIT around
the script to execute it as a single transaction. This
ensures that either all the commands complete successfully,
or no changes are applied.

If the script itself uses BEGIN, COMMIT, or
ROLLBACK, this option will not
have the desired effects. Also, if the script contains any
command that cannot be executed inside a transaction block,
specifying this option will cause that command (and hence
the whole transaction) to fail.

-?--help

Show help about psql
command line arguments, and exit.

Exit Status

psql returns 0 to the shell
if it finished normally, 1 if a fatal error of its own occurs
(e.g. out of memory, file not found), 2 if the connection to the
server went bad and the session was not interactive, and 3 if an
error occurred in a script and the variable ON_ERROR_STOP was set.

Usage

Connecting to a Database

psql is a regular
PostgreSQL client application.
In order to connect to a database you need to know the name of
your target database, the host name and port number of the
server, and what user name you want to connect as. psql can be told about those parameters
via command line options, namely -d,
-h, -p, and
-U respectively. If an argument is
found that does not belong to any option it will be interpreted
as the database name (or the user name, if the database name is
already given). Not all of these options are required; there
are useful defaults. If you omit the host name, psql will connect via a Unix-domain socket
to a server on the local host, or via TCP/IP to localhost on machines that don't have
Unix-domain sockets. The default port number is determined at
compile time. Since the database server uses the same default,
you will not have to specify the port in most cases. The
default user name is your operating-system user name, as is the
default database name. Note that you cannot just connect to any
database under any user name. Your database administrator
should have informed you about your access rights.

When the defaults aren't quite right, you can save yourself
some typing by setting the environment variables PGDATABASE, PGHOST,
PGPORT and/or PGUSER to appropriate values. (For additional
environment variables, see Section
31.14.) It is also convenient to have a ~/.pgpass file to avoid regularly having to
type in passwords. See Section
31.15 for more information.

An alternative way to specify connection parameters is in a
conninfo string or a URI, which is used instead of a database
name. This mechanism give you very wide control over the
connection. For example:

This way you can also use LDAP for connection parameter lookup as
described in Section 31.17. See
Section
31.1.2 for more information on all the available connection
options.

If the connection could not be made for any reason (e.g.,
insufficient privileges, server is not running on the targeted
host, etc.), psql will return
an error and terminate.

If both standard input and standard output are a terminal,
then psql sets the client
encoding to "auto", which will
detect the appropriate client encoding from the locale settings
(LC_CTYPE environment variable on Unix
systems). If this doesn't work out as expected, the client
encoding can be overridden using the environment variable
PGCLIENTENCODING.

Entering SQL Commands

In normal operation, psql
provides a prompt with the name of the database to which
psql is currently connected,
followed by the string =>. For
example:

$ psql testdb
psql (9.4.1)
Type "help" for help.
testdb=>

At the prompt, the user can type in SQL commands. Ordinarily, input lines are
sent to the server when a command-terminating semicolon is
reached. An end of line does not terminate a command. Thus
commands can be spread over several lines for clarity. If the
command was sent and executed without error, the results of the
command are displayed on the screen.

Whenever a command is executed, psql also polls for asynchronous
notification events generated by LISTEN and NOTIFY.

While C-style block comments are passed to the server for
processing and removal, SQL-standard comments are removed by
psql.

Meta-Commands

Anything you enter in psql
that begins with an unquoted backslash is a psql meta-command that is processed by
psql itself. These commands
make psql more useful for
administration or scripting. Meta-commands are often called
slash or backslash commands.

The format of a psql
command is the backslash, followed immediately by a command
verb, then any arguments. The arguments are separated from the
command verb and each other by any number of whitespace
characters.

To include whitespace in an argument you can quote it with
single quotes. To include a single quote in an argument, write
two single quotes within single-quoted text. Anything contained
in single quotes is furthermore subject to C-like substitutions
for \n (new line), \t (tab), \b
(backspace), \r (carriage return),
\f (form feed), \digits (octal),
and \xdigits (hexadecimal). A backslash
preceding any other character within single-quoted text quotes
that single character, whatever it is.

Within an argument, text that is enclosed in backquotes
(`) is taken as a command line that is
passed to the shell. The output of the command (with any
trailing newline removed) replaces the backquoted text.

If an unquoted colon (:) followed
by a psql variable name
appears within an argument, it is replaced by the variable's
value, as described in SQL
Interpolation.

Some commands take an SQL
identifier (such as a table name) as argument. These arguments
follow the syntax rules of SQL: Unquoted letters are forced to
lowercase, while double quotes (")
protect letters from case conversion and allow incorporation of
whitespace into the identifier. Within double quotes, paired
double quotes reduce to a single double quote in the resulting
name. For example, FOO"BAR"BAZ is
interpreted as fooBARbaz, and
"A weird"" name" becomes A weird" name.

Parsing for arguments stops at the end of the line, or when
another unquoted backslash is found. An unquoted backslash is
taken as the beginning of a new meta-command. The special
sequence \\ (two backslashes) marks
the end of arguments and continues parsing SQL commands, if any. That way
SQL and psql commands can be freely mixed on a
line. But in any case, the arguments of a meta-command cannot
continue beyond the end of the line.

The following meta-commands are defined:

\a

If the current table output format is unaligned, it is
switched to aligned. If it is not unaligned, it is set to
unaligned. This command is kept for backwards
compatibility. See \pset for a
more general solution.

\c or \connect[ dbname [ username ] [ host ] [ port ] ]

Establishes a new connection to a PostgreSQL server. If the new
connection is successfully made, the previous connection
is closed. If any of dbname, username, host or port are omitted or specified as
-, the value of that parameter
from the previous connection is used. If there is no
previous connection, the libpq default for the parameter's
value is used.

If the connection attempt failed (wrong user name,
access denied, etc.), the previous connection will only
be kept if psql is in
interactive mode. When executing a non-interactive
script, processing will immediately stop with an error.
This distinction was chosen as a user convenience against
typos on the one hand, and a safety mechanism that
scripts are not accidentally acting on the wrong database
on the other hand.

\C [ title ]

Sets the title of any tables being printed as the
result of a query or unset any such title. This command
is equivalent to \pset title
title. (The name of
this command derives from "caption", as it was previously only used
to set the caption in an HTML table.)

\cd [ directory ]

Changes the current working directory to directory. Without argument,
changes to the current user's home directory.

Performs a frontend (client) copy. This is an
operation that runs an SQLCOPY
command, but instead of the server reading or writing the
specified file, psql
reads or writes the file and routes the data between the
server and the local file system. This means that file
accessibility and privileges are those of the local user,
not the server, and no SQL superuser privileges are
required.

When program is specified,
command is executed by
psql and the data passed
from or to command is
routed between the server and the client. Again, the
execution privileges are those of the local user, not the
server, and no SQL superuser privileges are required.

For \copy ... from stdin,
data rows are read from the same source that issued the
command, continuing until \. is
read or the stream reaches EOF. This option is useful for
populating tables in-line within a SQL script file. For
\copy ... to stdout, output is
sent to the same place as psql command output, and the
COPY count command status is not
printed (since it might be confused with a data row). To
read/write psql's
standard input or output regardless of the current
command source or \o option,
write from pstdin or to pstdout.

The syntax of this command is similar to that of the
SQLCOPY command. All options other than
the data source/destination are as specified for COPY. Because of this, special
parsing rules apply to the \copy
command. In particular, psql's variable substitution rules
and backslash escapes do not apply.

Tip: This operation is not as efficient as
the SQLCOPY command because all data must
pass through the client/server connection. For large
amounts of data the SQL command might be
preferable.

For each relation (table, view, index, sequence, or
foreign table) or composite type matching the pattern, show all columns, their
types, the tablespace (if not the default) and any
special attributes such as NOT
NULL or defaults. Associated indexes, constraints,
rules, and triggers are also shown. For foreign tables,
the associated foreign server is shown as well.
("Matching the pattern" is
defined in Patterns
below.)

For some types of relation, \d shows additional information for each
column: column values for sequences, indexed expression
for indexes and foreign data wrapper options for foreign
tables.

The command form \d+ is
identical, except that more information is displayed: any
comments associated with the columns of the table are
shown, as is the presence of OIDs in the table, the view
definition if the relation is a view, a non-default
replica
identity setting.

By default, only user-created objects are shown;
supply a pattern or the S
modifier to include system objects.

Note: If \d is
used without a pattern argument, it is
equivalent to \dtvsE which
will show a list of all visible tables, views,
sequences and foreign tables. This is purely a
convenience measure.

Lists aggregate functions, together with their return
type and the data types they operate on. If pattern is specified, only
aggregates whose names match the pattern are shown. By
default, only user-created objects are shown; supply a
pattern or the S modifier to
include system objects.

Lists conversions between character-set encodings. If
pattern is specified,
only conversions whose names match the pattern are
listed. By default, only user-created objects are shown;
supply a pattern or the S
modifier to include system objects. If + is appended to the command name, each
object is listed with its associated description.

Lists type casts. If pattern is specified, only casts
whose source or target types match the pattern are
listed. If + is appended to the
command name, each object is listed with its associated
description.

Shows the descriptions of objects of type constraint, operator
class, operator family,
rule, and trigger. All other comments may be viewed
by the respective backslash commands for those object
types.

\dd displays descriptions for
objects matching the pattern, or of visible objects of
the appropriate type if no argument is given. But in
either case, only objects that have a description are
listed. By default, only user-created objects are shown;
supply a pattern or the S
modifier to include system objects.

Lists default access privilege settings. An entry is
shown for each role (and schema, if applicable) for which
the default privilege settings have been changed from the
built-in defaults. If pattern is specified, only entries
whose role name or schema name matches the pattern are
listed.

Lists domains. If pattern is specified, only domains
whose names match the pattern are shown. By default, only
user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or the
S modifier to include system
objects. If + is appended to the
command name, each object is listed with its associated
permissions and description.

In this group of commands, the letters E, i, m, s, t, and v stand
for foreign table, index, materialized view, sequence,
table, and view, respectively. You can specify any or all
of these letters, in any order, to obtain a listing of
objects of these types. For example, \dit lists indexes and tables. If
+ is appended to the command
name, each object is listed with its physical size on
disk and its associated description, if any. If
pattern is specified,
only objects whose names match the pattern are listed. By
default, only user-created objects are shown; supply a
pattern or the S modifier to
include system objects.

Lists foreign servers (mnemonic: "external servers"). If pattern is specified, only those
servers whose name matches the pattern are listed. If the
form \des+ is used, a full
description of each server is shown, including the
server's ACL, type, version, options, and
description.

Lists foreign tables (mnemonic: "external tables"). If pattern is specified, only entries
whose table name or schema name matches the pattern are
listed. If the form \det+ is
used, generic options and the foreign table description
are also displayed.

Lists user mappings (mnemonic: "external users"). If pattern is specified, only those
mappings whose user names match the pattern are listed.
If the form \deu+ is used,
additional information about each mapping is shown.

Caution

\deu+ might also
display the user name and password of the remote
user, so care should be taken not to disclose
them.

Lists foreign-data wrappers (mnemonic: "external wrappers"). If pattern is specified, only those
foreign-data wrappers whose name matches the pattern are
listed. If the form \dew+ is
used, the ACL, options, and description of the
foreign-data wrapper are also shown.

Lists functions, together with their arguments, return
types, and function types, which are classified as
"agg" (aggregate),
"normal", "trigger", or "window". To display only functions of
specific type(s), add the corresponding letters
a, n,
t, or w
to the command. If pattern is specified, only
functions whose names match the pattern are shown. By
default, only user-created objects are shown; supply a
pattern or the S modifier to
include system objects. If the form \df+ is used, additional information about
each function is shown, including security
classification, volatility, owner, language, source code
and description.

Tip: To look up functions taking arguments
or returning values of a specific type, use your
pager's search capability to scroll through the
\df output.

Lists text search configurations. If pattern is specified, only
configurations whose names match the pattern are shown.
If the form \dF+ is used, a full
description of each configuration is shown, including the
underlying text search parser and the dictionary list for
each parser token type.

Lists text search dictionaries. If pattern is specified, only
dictionaries whose names match the pattern are shown. If
the form \dFd+ is used,
additional information is shown about each selected
dictionary, including the underlying text search template
and the option values.

Lists text search parsers. If pattern is specified, only parsers
whose names match the pattern are shown. If the form
\dFp+ is used, a full
description of each parser is shown, including the
underlying functions and the list of recognized token
types.

Lists text search templates. If pattern is specified, only
templates whose names match the pattern are shown. If the
form \dFt+ is used, additional
information is shown about each template, including the
underlying function names.

Lists database roles. (Since the concepts of
"users" and "groups" have been unified into
"roles", this command is now
equivalent to \du.) If
pattern is specified,
only those roles whose names match the pattern are
listed. If the form \dg+ is
used, additional information is shown about each role;
currently this adds the comment for each role.

Lists procedural languages. If pattern is specified, only
languages whose names match the pattern are listed. By
default, only user-created languages are shown; supply
the S modifier to include system
objects. If + is appended to the
command name, each language is listed with its call
handler, validator, access privileges, and whether it is
a system object.

Lists schemas (namespaces). If pattern is specified, only schemas
whose names match the pattern are listed. By default,
only user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or
the S modifier to include system
objects. If + is appended to the
command name, each object is listed with its associated
permissions and description, if any.

Lists operators with their operand and result types.
If pattern is specified,
only operators whose names match the pattern are listed.
By default, only user-created objects are shown; supply a
pattern or the S modifier to
include system objects. If + is
appended to the command name, additional information
about each operator is shown, currently just the name of
the underlying function.

Lists collations. If pattern is specified, only
collations whose names match the pattern are listed. By
default, only user-created objects are shown; supply a
pattern or the S modifier to
include system objects. If + is
appended to the command name, each collation is listed
with its associated description, if any. Note that only
collations usable with the current database's encoding
are shown, so the results may vary in different databases
of the same installation.

Lists defined configuration settings. These settings
can be role-specific, database-specific, or both.
role-pattern and
database-pattern are used
to select specific roles and databases to list,
respectively. If omitted, or if * is specified, all settings are listed,
including those not role-specific or database-specific,
respectively.

Lists data types. If pattern is specified, only types
whose names match the pattern are listed. If + is appended to the command name, each
type is listed with its internal name and size, its
allowed values if it is an enum
type, and its associated permissions. By default, only
user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or the
S modifier to include system
objects.

Lists database roles. (Since the concepts of
"users" and "groups" have been unified into
"roles", this command is now
equivalent to \dg.) If
pattern is specified,
only those roles whose names match the pattern are
listed. If the form \du+ is
used, additional information is shown about each role;
currently this adds the comment for each role.

Lists installed extensions. If pattern is specified, only those
extensions whose names match the pattern are listed. If
the form \dx+ is used, all the
objects belonging to each matching extension are
listed.

Lists event triggers. If pattern is specified, only those
event triggers whose names match the pattern are listed.
If + is appended to the command
name, each object is listed with its associated
description.

\e or \edit[ filename
] [ line_number ]

If filename is
specified, the file is edited; after the editor exits,
its content is copied back to the query buffer. If no
filename is given, the
current query buffer is copied to a temporary file which
is then edited in the same fashion.

The new query buffer is then re-parsed according to
the normal rules of psql, where the whole buffer is
treated as a single line. (Thus you cannot make scripts
this way. Use \i for that.) This
means that if the query ends with (or contains) a
semicolon, it is immediately executed. Otherwise it will
merely wait in the query buffer; type semicolon or
\g to send it, or \r to cancel.

If a line number is specified, psql will position the cursor on the
specified line of the file or query buffer. Note that if
a single all-digits argument is given, psql assumes it is a line number,
not a file name.

Tip: See under Environment
for how to configure and customize your editor.

\echo text [ ... ]

Prints the arguments to the standard output, separated
by one space and followed by a newline. This can be
useful to intersperse information in the output of
scripts. For example:

=> \echo `date`
Tue Oct 26 21:40:57 CEST 1999

If the first argument is an unquoted -n the trailing newline is not
written.

Tip: If you use the \o command to redirect your query
output you might wish to use \qecho instead of this command.

\ef [ function_description [ line_number ]
]

This command fetches and edits the definition of the
named function, in the form of a CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION command.
Editing is done in the same way as for \edit. After the editor exits, the updated
command waits in the query buffer; type semicolon or
\g to send it, or \r to cancel.

The target function can be specified by name alone, or
by name and arguments, for example foo(integer, text). The argument types
must be given if there is more than one function of the
same name.

If no function is specified, a blank CREATE FUNCTION template is presented for
editing.

If a line number is specified, psql will position the cursor on the
specified line of the function body. (Note that the
function body typically does not begin on the first line
of the file.)

Tip: See under Environment
for how to configure and customize your editor.

\encoding [ encoding ]

Sets the client character set encoding. Without an
argument, this command shows the current encoding.

\f [ string ]

Sets the field separator for unaligned query output.
The default is the vertical bar (|). See also \pset for a generic way of setting output
options.

\g [ filename ]\g [ |command ]

Sends the current query input buffer to the server,
and optionally stores the query's output in filename or pipes the output to the
shell command command.
The file or command is written to only if the query
successfully returns zero or more tuples, not if the
query fails or is a non-data-returning SQL command.

A bare \g is essentially
equivalent to a semicolon. A \g
with argument is a "one-shot"
alternative to the \o
command.

\gset [ prefix ]

Sends the current query input buffer to the server and
stores the query's output into psql variables (see Variables).
The query to be executed must return exactly one row.
Each column of the row is stored into a separate
variable, named the same as the column. For example:

If a column result is NULL, the corresponding variable
is unset rather than being set.

If the query fails or does not return one row, no
variables are changed.

\h or \help[ command ]

Gives syntax help on the specified SQL command. If command is not specified, then
psql will list all the
commands for which syntax help is available. If
command is an asterisk
(*), then syntax help on all
SQL commands is
shown.

Note: To simplify typing, commands that
consists of several words do not have to be quoted.
Thus it is fine to type \help
alter table.

\H or \html

Turns on HTML query
output format. If the HTML format is already on, it is
switched back to the default aligned text format. This
command is for compatibility and convenience, but see
\pset about setting other output
options.

\i or \includefilename

Reads input from the file filename and executes it as though
it had been typed on the keyboard.

Note: If you want to see the lines on the
screen as they are read you must set the variable
ECHO to all.

\ir or \include_relativefilename

The \ir command is similar to
\i, but resolves relative file
names differently. When executing in interactive mode,
the two commands behave identically. However, when
invoked from a script, \ir
interprets file names relative to the directory in which
the script is located, rather than the current working
directory.

List the databases in the server and show their names,
owners, character set encodings, and access privileges.
If pattern is specified,
only databases whose names match the pattern are listed.
If + is appended to the command
name, database sizes, default tablespaces, and
descriptions are also displayed. (Size information is
only available for databases that the current user can
connect to.)

\lo_export loidfilename

Reads the large object with OIDloid from the database and writes
it to filename. Note that
this is subtly different from the server function
lo_export, which acts with
the permissions of the user that the database server runs
as and on the server's file system.

Tip: Use \lo_list
to find out the large object's OID.

\lo_import filename [ comment ]

Stores the file into a PostgreSQL large object. Optionally,
it associates the given comment with the object.
Example:

The response indicates that the large object received
object ID 152801, which can be used to access the
newly-created large object in the future. For the sake of
readability, it is recommended to always associate a
human-readable comment with every object. Both OIDs and
comments can be viewed with the \lo_list command.

Note that this command is subtly different from the
server-side lo_import
because it acts as the local user on the local file
system, rather than the server's user and file
system.

\lo_list

Shows a list of all PostgreSQL large objects currently
stored in the database, along with any comments provided
for them.

\lo_unlink loid

Deletes the large object with OIDloid from the database.

Tip: Use \lo_list
to find out the large object's OID.

\o or \out
[ filename ]\o or \out [
|command ]

Arranges to save future query results to the file
filename or pipe future
results to the shell command command. If no argument is
specified, the query output is reset to the standard
output.

"Query results" includes
all tables, command responses, and notices obtained from
the database server, as well as output of various
backslash commands that query the database (such as
\d), but not error messages.

Tip: To intersperse text output in between
query results, use \qecho.

\p or \print

Print the current query buffer to the standard
output.

\password [ username ]

Changes the password of the specified user (by
default, the current user). This command prompts for the
new password, encrypts it, and sends it to the server as
an ALTER ROLE command. This
makes sure that the new password does not appear in
cleartext in the command history, the server log, or
elsewhere.

\prompt [ text ] name

Prompts the user to supply text, which is assigned to
the variable name. An
optional prompt string, text, can be specified. (For
multiword prompts, surround the text with single
quotes.)

By default, \prompt uses the
terminal for input and output. However, if the -f command line switch was used, \prompt uses standard input and standard
output.

\pset [ option [ value ] ]

This command sets options affecting the output of
query result tables. option indicates which option is to
be set. The semantics of value vary depending on the
selected option. For some options, omitting value causes the option to be
toggled or unset, as described under the particular
option. If no such behavior is mentioned, then omitting
value just results in the
current setting being displayed.

\pset without any arguments
displays the current status of all printing options.

Adjustable printing options are:

border

The value must
be a number. In general, the higher the number the
more borders and lines the tables will have, but
this depends on the particular format. In
HTML format,
this will translate directly into the border=... attribute; in the other
formats only values 0 (no border), 1 (internal
dividing lines), and 2 (table frame) make sense.
latex and latex-longtable also support a
border value of 3 which
adds a dividing line between each row.

columns

Sets the target width for the wrapped format, and also the width
limit for determining whether output is wide enough
to require the pager or switch to the vertical
display in expanded auto mode. Zero (the default)
causes the target width to be controlled by the
environment variable COLUMNS, or the detected screen width
if COLUMNS is not set. In
addition, if columns is
zero then the wrapped
format only affects screen output. If columns is nonzero then file and
pipe output is wrapped to that width as well.

expanded (or x)

If value is
specified it must be either on or off,
which will enable or disable expanded mode, or
auto. If value is omitted the command
toggles between the on and off settings. When
expanded mode is enabled, query results are
displayed in two columns, with the column name on
the left and the data on the right. This mode is
useful if the data wouldn't fit on the screen in
the normal "horizontal"
mode. In the auto setting, the expanded mode is
used whenever the query output is wider than the
screen, otherwise the regular mode is used. The
auto setting is only effective in the aligned and
wrapped formats. In other formats, it always
behaves as if the expanded mode is off.

fieldsep

Specifies the field separator to be used in
unaligned output format. That way one can create,
for example, tab- or comma-separated output, which
other programs might prefer. To set a tab as field
separator, type \pset fieldsep
'\t'. The default field separator is
'|' (a vertical bar).

fieldsep_zero

Sets the field separator to use in unaligned
output format to a zero byte.

footer

If value is
specified it must be either on or off
which will enable or disable display of the table
footer (the (n rows) count). If
value is omitted
the command toggles footer display on or off.

format

Sets the output format to one of unaligned, aligned, wrapped, html, latex
(uses tabular), latex-longtable, or troff-ms. Unique abbreviations are
allowed. (That would mean one letter is
enough.)

unaligned format writes
all columns of a row on one line, separated by the
currently active field separator. This is useful
for creating output that might be intended to be
read in by other programs (for example,
tab-separated or comma-separated format).

aligned format is the
standard, human-readable, nicely formatted text
output; this is the default.

wrapped format is like
aligned but wraps wide
data values across lines to make the output fit in
the target column width. The target width is
determined as described under the columns option. Note that
psql will not
attempt to wrap column header titles; therefore,
wrapped format behaves the
same as aligned if the
total width needed for column headers exceeds the
target.

The html, latex, latex-longtable, and troff-ms formats put out tables that
are intended to be included in documents using the
respective mark-up language. They are not complete
documents! This might not be necessary in
HTML, but in
LaTeX you must
have a complete document wrapper. latex-longtable also requires the
LaTeXlongtable and booktabs packages.

linestyle

Sets the border line drawing style to one of
ascii, old-ascii or unicode. Unique abbreviations are
allowed. (That would mean one letter is enough.)
The default setting is ascii. This option only affects the
aligned and wrapped output formats.

ascii style uses plain
ASCII
characters. Newlines in data are shown using a
+ symbol in the right-hand
margin. When the wrapped
format wraps data from one line to the next without
a newline character, a dot (.) is shown in the right-hand margin
of the first line, and again in the left-hand
margin of the following line.

old-ascii style uses
plain ASCII
characters, using the formatting style used in
PostgreSQL 8.4 and
earlier. Newlines in data are shown using a
: symbol in place of the
left-hand column separator. When the data is
wrapped from one line to the next without a newline
character, a ; symbol is
used in place of the left-hand column
separator.

unicode style uses
Unicode box-drawing characters. Newlines in data
are shown using a carriage return symbol in the
right-hand margin. When the data is wrapped from
one line to the next without a newline character,
an ellipsis symbol is shown in the right-hand
margin of the first line, and again in the
left-hand margin of the following line.

When the border setting
is greater than zero, this option also determines
the characters with which the border lines are
drawn. Plain ASCII characters work
everywhere, but Unicode characters look nicer on
displays that recognize them.

null

Sets the string to be printed in place of a null
value. The default is to print nothing, which can
easily be mistaken for an empty string. For
example, one might prefer \pset
null '(null)'.

numericlocale

If value is
specified it must be either on or off
which will enable or disable display of a
locale-specific character to separate groups of
digits to the left of the decimal marker. If
value is omitted
the command toggles between regular and
locale-specific numeric output.

pager

Controls use of a pager program for query and
psql help output.
If the environment variable PAGER is set, the output is piped to
the specified program. Otherwise a
platform-dependent default (such as more) is used.

When the pager option
is off, the pager program
is not used. When the pager option is on, the pager is used when
appropriate, i.e., when the output is to a terminal
and will not fit on the screen. The pager option can also be set to
always, which causes the
pager to be used for all terminal output regardless
of whether it fits on the screen. \pset pager without a value toggles pager use on
and off.

recordsep

Specifies the record (line) separator to use in
unaligned output format. The default is a newline
character.

recordsep_zero

Sets the record separator to use in unaligned
output format to a zero byte.

tableattr (or T)

In HTML
format, this specifies attributes to be placed
inside the table tag.
This could for example be cellpadding or bgcolor. Note that you probably
don't want to specify border here, as that is already
taken care of by \pset
border. If no value is given, the table
attributes are unset.

In latex-longtable
format, this controls the proportional width of
each column containing a left-aligned data type. It
is specified as a whitespace-separated list of
values, e.g. '0.2 0.2
0.6'. Unspecified output columns use the last
specified value.

title

Sets the table title for any subsequently
printed tables. This can be used to give your
output descriptive tags. If no value is given, the title is
unset.

tuples_only (or
t)

If value is
specified it must be either on or off
which will enable or disable tuples-only mode. If
value is omitted
the command toggles between regular and tuples-only
output. Regular output includes extra information
such as column headers, titles, and various
footers. In tuples-only mode, only actual table
data is shown.

Illustrations of how these different formats look can
be seen in the Examples
section.

Tip: There are various shortcut commands
for \pset. See \a, \C,
\H, \t, \T, and
\x.

\q or \quit

Quits the psql
program. In a script file, only execution of that script
is terminated.

\qecho text [ ... ]

This command is identical to \echo except that the output will be
written to the query output channel, as set by \o.

\r or \reset

Resets (clears) the query buffer.

\s [ filename ]

Print psql's command
line history to filename.
If filename is omitted,
the history is written to the standard output (using the
pager if appropriate). This command is not available if
psql was built without
Readline support.

\set [ name [ value [ ... ] ] ]

Sets the psql
variable name to
value, or if more than
one value is given, to the concatenation of all of them.
If only one argument is given, the variable is set with
an empty value. To unset a variable, use the \unset command.

\set without any arguments
displays the names and values of all currently-set
psql variables.

Valid variable names can contain letters, digits, and
underscores. See the section Variables below
for details. Variable names are case-sensitive.

Although you are welcome to set any variable to
anything you want, psql
treats several variables as special. They are documented
in the section about variables.

Lists tables, views and sequences with their
associated access privileges. If a pattern is specified, only tables,
views and sequences whose names match the pattern are
listed.

This is an alias for \dp
("display privileges").

\! [ command ]

Escapes to a separate shell or executes the shell
command command. The
arguments are not further interpreted; the shell will see
them as-is. In particular, the variable substitution
rules and backslash escapes do not apply.

\?

Shows help information about the backslash
commands.

Patterns

The various \d commands accept a
pattern parameter to specify
the object name(s) to be displayed. In the simplest case, a
pattern is just the exact name of the object. The characters
within a pattern are normally folded to lower case, just as
in SQL names; for example, \dt FOO
will display the table named foo. As
in SQL names, placing double quotes around a pattern stops
folding to lower case. Should you need to include an actual
double quote character in a pattern, write it as a pair of
double quotes within a double-quote sequence; again this is
in accord with the rules for SQL quoted identifiers. For
example, \dt "FOO""BAR" will display
the table named FOO"BAR (not
foo"bar). Unlike the normal rules
for SQL names, you can put double quotes around just part of
a pattern, for instance \dt
FOO"FOO"BAR will display the table named fooFOObar.

Whenever the pattern
parameter is omitted completely, the \d commands display all objects that are
visible in the current schema search path — this is
equivalent to using * as the
pattern. (An object is said to be visible if its containing schema is in the
search path and no object of the same kind and name appears
earlier in the search path. This is equivalent to the
statement that the object can be referenced by name without
explicit schema qualification.) To see all objects in the
database regardless of visibility, use *.* as the pattern.

Within a pattern, * matches any
sequence of characters (including no characters) and
? matches any single character.
(This notation is comparable to Unix shell file name
patterns.) For example, \dt int*
displays tables whose names begin with int. But within double quotes, * and ? lose these
special meanings and are just matched literally.

A pattern that contains a dot (.)
is interpreted as a schema name pattern followed by an object
name pattern. For example, \dt
foo*.*bar* displays all tables whose table name includes
bar that are in schemas whose schema
name starts with foo. When no dot
appears, then the pattern matches only objects that are
visible in the current schema search path. Again, a dot
within double quotes loses its special meaning and is matched
literally.

Advanced users can use regular-expression notations such
as character classes, for example [0-9] to match any digit. All regular
expression special characters work as specified in Section
9.7.3, except for . which is
taken as a separator as mentioned above, * which is translated to the
regular-expression notation .*,
? which is translated to ., and $ which is
matched literally. You can emulate these pattern characters
at need by writing ? for ., (R+|) for R*, or
(R|)
for R?. $ is
not needed as a regular-expression character since the
pattern must match the whole name, unlike the usual
interpretation of regular expressions (in other words,
$ is automatically appended to your
pattern). Write * at the beginning
and/or end if you don't wish the pattern to be anchored. Note
that within double quotes, all regular expression special
characters lose their special meanings and are matched
literally. Also, the regular expression special characters
are matched literally in operator name patterns (i.e., the
argument of \do).

Advanced Features

Variables

psql provides variable
substitution features similar to common Unix command shells.
Variables are simply name/value pairs, where the value can be
any string of any length. The name must consist of letters
(including non-Latin letters), digits, and underscores.

To set a variable, use the psql meta-command \set. For example,

testdb=> \set foo bar

sets the variable foo to the
value bar. To retrieve the content
of the variable, precede the name with a colon, for
example:

testdb=> \echo :foo
bar

This works in both regular SQL commands and meta-commands;
there is more detail in SQL Interpolation,
below.

If you call \set without a second
argument, the variable is set, with an empty string as value.
To unset (i.e., delete) a variable, use the command
\unset. To show the values of all
variables, call \set without any
argument.

Note: The arguments of \set are subject to the same substitution
rules as with other commands. Thus you can construct
interesting references such as \set
:foo 'something' and get "soft
links" or "variable
variables" of Perl or PHP fame, respectively.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?), there is no way to do
anything useful with these constructs. On the other hand,
\set bar :foo is a perfectly
valid way to copy a variable.

A number of these variables are treated specially by
psql. They represent certain
option settings that can be changed at run time by altering
the value of the variable, or in some cases represent
changeable state of psql.
Although you can use these variables for other purposes, this
is not recommended, as the program behavior might grow really
strange really quickly. By convention, all specially treated
variables' names consist of all upper-case ASCII letters (and
possibly digits and underscores). To ensure maximum
compatibility in the future, avoid using such variable names
for your own purposes. A list of all specially treated
variables follows.

AUTOCOMMIT

When on (the default), each
SQL command is automatically committed upon successful
completion. To postpone commit in this mode, you must
enter a BEGIN or START TRANSACTION SQL command. When
off or unset, SQL commands are
not committed until you explicitly issue COMMIT or END.
The autocommit-off mode works by issuing an implicit
BEGIN for you, just before any
command that is not already in a transaction block and
is not itself a BEGIN or other
transaction-control command, nor a command that cannot
be executed inside a transaction block (such as
VACUUM).

Note: In autocommit-off mode, you must
explicitly abandon any failed transaction by
entering ABORT or
ROLLBACK. Also keep in
mind that if you exit the session without
committing, your work will be lost.

Note: The autocommit-on mode is
PostgreSQL's
traditional behavior, but autocommit-off is closer
to the SQL spec. If you prefer autocommit-off, you
might wish to set it in the system-wide psqlrc file or your ~/.psqlrc file.

COMP_KEYWORD_CASE

Determines which letter case to use when completing
an SQL key word. If set to lower or upper,
the completed word will be in lower or upper case,
respectively. If set to preserve-lower or preserve-upper (the default), the
completed word will be in the case of the word already
entered, but words being completed without anything
entered will be in lower or upper case,
respectively.

DBNAME

The name of the database you are currently connected
to. This is set every time you connect to a database
(including program start-up), but can be unset.

ECHO

If set to all, all nonempty
input lines are printed to standard output as they are
read. (This does not apply to lines read
interactively.) To select this behavior on program
start-up, use the switch -a. If
set to queries, psql prints each query to standard
output as it is sent to the server. The switch for this
is -e.

ECHO_HIDDEN

When this variable is set to on and a backslash command queries the
database, the query is first shown. This feature helps
you to study PostgreSQL internals and provide
similar functionality in your own programs. (To select
this behavior on program start-up, use the switch
-E.) If you set the variable to
the value noexec, the queries
are just shown but are not actually sent to the server
and executed.

ENCODING

The current client character set encoding.

FETCH_COUNT

If this variable is set to an integer value > 0,
the results of SELECT queries
are fetched and displayed in groups of that many rows,
rather than the default behavior of collecting the
entire result set before display. Therefore only a
limited amount of memory is used, regardless of the
size of the result set. Settings of 100 to 1000 are
commonly used when enabling this feature. Keep in mind
that when using this feature, a query might fail after
having already displayed some rows.

Tip: Although you can use any output
format with this feature, the default aligned format tends to look bad
because each group of FETCH_COUNT rows will be formatted
separately, leading to varying column widths across
the row groups. The other output formats work
better.

HISTCONTROL

If this variable is set to ignorespace, lines which begin with a
space are not entered into the history list. If set to
a value of ignoredups, lines
matching the previous history line are not entered. A
value of ignoreboth combines
the two options. If unset, or if set to any other value
than those above, all lines read in interactive mode
are saved on the history list.

Note: This feature was shamelessly
plagiarized from Bash.

HISTFILE

The file name that will be used to store the history
list. The default value is ~/.psql_history. For example,
putting:

\set HISTFILE ~/.psql_history- :DBNAME

in ~/.psqlrc will cause
psql to maintain a
separate history for each database.

Note: This feature was shamelessly
plagiarized from Bash.

HISTSIZE

The number of commands to store in the command
history. The default value is 500.

Note: This feature was shamelessly
plagiarized from Bash.

HOST

The database server host you are currently connected
to. This is set every time you connect to a database
(including program start-up), but can be unset.

IGNOREEOF

If unset, sending an EOF character (usually Control+D) to an
interactive session of psql will terminate the
application. If set to a numeric value, that many
EOF characters are
ignored before the application terminates. If the
variable is set but has no numeric value, the default
is 10.

Note: This feature was shamelessly
plagiarized from Bash.

LASTOID

The value of the last affected OID, as returned from
an INSERT or \lo_import command. This variable is
only guaranteed to be valid until after the result of
the next SQL command
has been displayed.

ON_ERROR_ROLLBACK

When set to on, if a
statement in a transaction block generates an error,
the error is ignored and the transaction continues.
When set to interactive, such
errors are only ignored in interactive sessions, and
not when reading script files. When unset or set to
off, a statement in a
transaction block that generates an error aborts the
entire transaction. The error rollback mode works by
issuing an implicit SAVEPOINT
for you, just before each command that is in a
transaction block, and then rolling back to the
savepoint if the command fails.

ON_ERROR_STOP

By default, command processing continues after an
error. When this variable is set to on, processing will instead stop
immediately. In interactive mode, psql will return to the command
prompt; otherwise, psql will exit, returning error
code 3 to distinguish this case from fatal error
conditions, which are reported using error code 1. In
either case, any currently running scripts (the
top-level script, if any, and any other scripts which
it may have in invoked) will be terminated immediately.
If the top-level command string contained multiple SQL
commands, processing will stop with the current
command.

PORT

The database server port to which you are currently
connected. This is set every time you connect to a
database (including program start-up), but can be
unset.

PROMPT1PROMPT2PROMPT3

These specify what the prompts psql issues should look like. See
Prompting
below.

QUIET

Setting this variable to on
is equivalent to the command line option -q. It is probably not too useful in
interactive mode.

SINGLELINE

Setting this variable to on
is equivalent to the command line option -S.

SINGLESTEP

Setting this variable to on
is equivalent to the command line option -s.

USER

The database user you are currently connected as.
This is set every time you connect to a database
(including program start-up), but can be unset.

VERBOSITY

This variable can be set to the values default, verbose, or terse to control the verbosity of error
reports.

SQL Interpolation

A key feature of psql
variables is that you can substitute ("interpolate") them into regular
SQL statements, as well as
the arguments of meta-commands. Furthermore, psql provides facilities for ensuring
that variable values used as SQL literals and identifiers are
properly quoted. The syntax for interpolating a value without
any quoting is to prepend the variable name with a colon
(:). For example,

testdb=> \set foo 'my_table'
testdb=> SELECT * FROM :foo;

would query the table my_table.
Note that this may be unsafe: the value of the variable is
copied literally, so it can contain unbalanced quotes, or
even backslash commands. You must make sure that it makes
sense where you put it.

When a value is to be used as an SQL literal or
identifier, it is safest to arrange for it to be quoted. To
quote the value of a variable as an SQL literal, write a
colon followed by the variable name in single quotes. To
quote the value as an SQL identifier, write a colon followed
by the variable name in double quotes. These constructs deal
correctly with quotes and other special characters embedded
within the variable value. The previous example would be more
safely written this way:

testdb=> \set foo 'my_table'
testdb=> SELECT * FROM :"foo";

Variable interpolation will not be performed within quoted
SQL literals and
identifiers. Therefore, a construction such as ':foo' doesn't work to produce a quoted
literal from a variable's value (and it would be unsafe if it
did work, since it wouldn't correctly handle quotes embedded
in the value).

One example use of this mechanism is to copy the contents
of a file into a table column. First load the file into a
variable and then interpolate the variable's value as a
quoted string:

(Note that this still won't work if my_file.txt contains NUL bytes. psql does not support embedded NUL bytes
in variable values.)

Since colons can legally appear in SQL commands, an
apparent attempt at interpolation (that is, :name, :'name', or
:"name") is not replaced unless the
named variable is currently set. In any case, you can escape
a colon with a backslash to protect it from substitution.

The colon syntax for variables is standard SQL for embedded query languages, such as
ECPG. The colon syntaxes for
array slices and type casts are PostgreSQL extensions, which can
sometimes conflict with the standard usage. The colon-quote
syntax for escaping a variable's value as an SQL literal or
identifier is a psql
extension.

Prompting

The prompts psql issues
can be customized to your preference. The three variables
PROMPT1, PROMPT2, and PROMPT3
contain strings and special escape sequences that describe
the appearance of the prompt. Prompt 1 is the normal prompt
that is issued when psql
requests a new command. Prompt 2 is issued when more input is
expected during command input because the command was not
terminated with a semicolon or a quote was not closed. Prompt
3 is issued when you run an SQLCOPY command
and you are expected to type in the row values on the
terminal.

The value of the selected prompt variable is printed
literally, except where a percent sign (%) is encountered. Depending on the next
character, certain other text is substituted instead. Defined
substitutions are:

%M

The full host name (with domain name) of the
database server, or [local] if
the connection is over a Unix domain socket, or
[local:/dir/name], if the Unix
domain socket is not at the compiled in default
location.

%m

The host name of the database server, truncated at
the first dot, or [local] if
the connection is over a Unix domain socket.

%>

The port number at which the database server is
listening.

%n

The database session user name. (The expansion of
this value might change during a database session as
the result of the command SET
SESSION AUTHORIZATION.)

%/

The name of the current database.

%~

Like %/, but the output is
~ (tilde) if the database is
your default database.

%#

If the session user is a database superuser, then a
#, otherwise a >. (The expansion of this value might
change during a database session as the result of the
command SET SESSION
AUTHORIZATION.)

%R

In prompt 1 normally =, but
^ if in single-line mode, and
! if the session is
disconnected from the database (which can happen if
\connect fails). In prompt 2
the sequence is replaced by -,
*, a single quote, a double
quote, or a dollar sign, depending on whether
psql expects more
input because the command wasn't terminated yet,
because you are inside a /* ...
*/ comment, or because you are inside a quoted or
dollar-escaped string. In prompt 3 the sequence doesn't
produce anything.

%x

Transaction status: an empty string when not in a
transaction block, or * when
in a transaction block, or !
when in a failed transaction block, or ? when the transaction state is
indeterminate (for example, because there is no
connection).

%digits

The character with the indicated octal code is
substituted.

%:name:

The value of the psql variable name. See the section Variables for
details.

%`command`

The output of command, similar to ordinary
"back-tick"
substitution.

%[ ... %]

Prompts can contain terminal control characters
which, for example, change the color, background, or
style of the prompt text, or change the title of the
terminal window. In order for the line editing features
of Readline to work
properly, these non-printing control characters must be
designated as invisible by surrounding them with
%[ and %]. Multiple pairs of these can occur
within the prompt. For example:

To insert a percent sign into your prompt, write
%%. The default prompts are
'%/%R%# ' for prompts 1 and 2, and
'>> ' for prompt 3.

Note: This feature was shamelessly plagiarized
from tcsh.

Command-Line Editing

psql supports the
Readline library for
convenient line editing and retrieval. The command history is
automatically saved when psql exits and is reloaded when
psql starts up.
Tab-completion is also supported, although the completion
logic makes no claim to be an SQL parser. The queries generated by
tab-completion can also interfere with other SQL commands,
e.g. SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION
LEVEL. If for some reason you do not like the tab
completion, you can turn it off by putting this in a file
named .inputrc in your home
directory:

$if psql
set disable-completion on
$endif

(This is not a psql but a
Readline feature. Read its
documentation for further details.)

Environment

COLUMNS

If \pset columns is zero,
controls the width for the wrapped
format and width for determining if wide output requires
the pager or should be switched to the vertical format in
expanded auto mode.

PAGER

If the query results do not fit on the screen, they are
piped through this command. Typical values are more or less. The
default is platform-dependent. The use of the pager can be
disabled by using the \pset
command.

Editor used by the \e and
\ef commands. The variables are
examined in the order listed; the first that is set is
used.

The built-in default editors are vi on Unix systems and notepad.exe on Windows systems.

PSQL_EDITOR_LINENUMBER_ARG

When \e or \ef is used with a line number argument,
this variable specifies the command-line argument used to
pass the starting line number to the user's editor. For
editors such as Emacs or
vi, this is a plus sign.
Include a trailing space in the value of the variable if
there needs to be space between the option name and the
line number. Examples:

PSQL_EDITOR_LINENUMBER_ARG='+'
PSQL_EDITOR_LINENUMBER_ARG='--line '

The default is + on Unix
systems (corresponding to the default editor vi, and useful for many other common
editors); but there is no default on Windows systems.

PSQL_HISTORY

Alternative location for the command history file. Tilde
(~) expansion is performed.

This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the
environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 31.14).

Files

psqlrc and ~/.psqlrc

Unless it is passed an -X or
-c option, psql attempts to read and execute
commands from the system-wide startup file (psqlrc) and then the user's personal
startup file (~/.psqlrc), after
connecting to the database but before accepting normal
commands. These files can be used to set up the client
and/or the server to taste, typically with \set and SET
commands.

The system-wide startup file is named psqlrc and is sought in the installation's
"system configuration"
directory, which is most reliably identified by running
pg_config --sysconfdir. By default
this directory will be ../etc/
relative to the directory containing the PostgreSQL executables. The name of
this directory can be set explicitly via the PGSYSCONFDIR environment variable.

The user's personal startup file is named .psqlrc and is sought in the invoking
user's home directory. On Windows, which lacks such a
concept, the personal startup file is named %APPDATA%\postgresql\psqlrc.conf. The
location of the user's startup file can be set explicitly
via the PSQLRC environment
variable.

Both the system-wide startup file and the user's
personal startup file can be made psql-version-specific by appending a
dash and the PostgreSQL
major or minor release number to the file name, for example
~/.psqlrc-9.2 or ~/.psqlrc-9.2.5. The most specific
version-matching file will be read in preference to a
non-version-specific file.

.psql_history

The command-line history is stored in the file
~/.psql_history, or %APPDATA%\postgresql\psql_history on
Windows.

The location of the history file can be set explicitly
via the PSQL_HISTORY environment
variable.

Notes

In an earlier life psql
allowed the first argument of a single-letter backslash
command to start directly after the command, without
intervening whitespace. As of PostgreSQL 8.4 this is no longer
allowed.

psql works best with
servers of the same or an older major version. Backslash
commands are particularly likely to fail if the server is of
a newer version than psql
itself. However, backslash commands of the \d family should work with servers of versions
back to 7.4, though not necessarily with servers newer than
psql itself. The general
functionality of running SQL commands and displaying query
results should also work with servers of a newer major
version, but this cannot be guaranteed in all cases.

If you want to use psql
to connect to several servers of different major versions, it
is recommended that you use the newest version of
psql. Alternatively, you can
keep a copy of psql from
each major version around and be sure to use the version that
matches the respective server. But in practice, this
additional complication should not be necessary.

Notes for Windows Users

psql is built as a
"console application". Since the
Windows console windows use a different encoding than the rest of
the system, you must take special care when using 8-bit
characters within psql. If
psql detects a problematic
console code page, it will warn you at startup. To change the
console code page, two things are necessary:

Set the code page by entering cmd.exe /c chcp 1252. (1252 is a code page
that is appropriate for German; replace it with your value.)
If you are using Cygwin, you can put this command in
/etc/profile.

Set the console font to Lucida
Console, because the raster font does not work with the
ANSI code page.

Examples

The first example shows how to spread a command over several
lines of input. Notice the changing prompt:

peter@localhost testdb=> \a \t \x
Output format is aligned.
Tuples only is off.
Expanded display is on.
peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT * FROM my_table;
-[ RECORD 1 ]-
first | 1
second | one
-[ RECORD 2 ]-
first | 2
second | two
-[ RECORD 3 ]-
first | 3
second | three
-[ RECORD 4 ]-
first | 4
second | four

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